Devs will be forced to give away their early Gear VR games for free, Oculus says

Oculus is planning to launch its virtual reality games portal without the means to pay for software.

The result? Early titles for Samsung’s upcoming Gear VR headset will have to be given away for free because Gear VR titles won’t be available on Google Play or the Amazon App Store – or indeed anywhere else other than Oculus Home.

"We’re launching Gear VR without monetisation in Oculus Home," Oculus’ Nate Mitchell told Polygon. "Payments are hard. We have not rolled out our payment infrastructure as fast as we’d want.

"The truth is, we’re behind on where we want to be, and we’re working as fast as we can to get it in place. It should have already been there."

The reaction from developers has apparently been less than enthused as they are left in a position where they must choose between riding the crest of the launch excitement wave, enjoying plenty of downloads but earning no cash at all or waiting a little longer, possibly at the expense of consumer interest.

Mitchell added: "I share their pain. I truly do. This is not where we wanted to be. We wanted to have our payments infrastructure online already. We have devs, they’re making made for VR games and they say I’m ready to sell it to all of these users, and we’re like, ‘Hold that thought for a few months’."